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A Celebration Of Sound: Public Domain Day 2022

Publication date: 2022-01-20

Topics: webinar, public domain, zoom

Language: English

Item Size: 2.7G

On January 20, 2022, the Internet Archive, Creative Commons and many other leaders from the Open world honored the treasure trove of works published in 1926 that entered the public domain in 2022. The public domain grew richer with canonical works from authors like Hemingway, Faulkner and Dorothy Parker, silent film classics like Nanook of the North, and beloved children’s stories about Winnie-the Pooh and the Hundred Acre woods, becoming freely available to all.

Due to the recently enacted Music Modernization Act in the U.S., approximately 400,000 sound recordings from the pre-1923 era also joined the public domain for the first time in our history. That’s why this year our theme was a Celebration of Sound. This event explored the rich historical context of recorded sound from its earliest days, including early jazz and blues, classical, and spoken word recordings reflecting important political and social issues of the era.

Our virtual event featured a keynote from Senator Ron Wyden, champion of the Music Modernization Act and a host of musical acts, dancers, historians, librarians, academics, activists and other leaders from the Open world!

Additional sponsoring organizations included: Library Futures, SPARC, Authors Alliance, the Biodiversity Heritage Library, Public Knowledge, ARSC, the Duke Center for the Study of the Public Domain, and the Music Library Association.

Jump to:

Kickoff - Lila Bailey, Internet Archive
Preshow - Brian Foo, Citizen DJ
Intro - Lila Bailey & Jennie Rose Halperin, Library Futures
Welcome - Catherine Stihler, Creative Commons
Keynote - Senator Ron Wyden (Oregon)
About the Music Modernization Act - Meredith Rose, Public Knowledge
Celebrating the Public Domain - Jennifer Jenkins, Center for the Study of the Public Domain
Interlude - Roochie Toochie and the Ragtime Shepherd Kings
Student podcasts - Jason Luther, Matt Berrian & Jay Norton, Rowan University
About Citizen DJ - Brian Foo
Q&A with musician and historian Colin Hancock - Kathleen DeLaurenti, Peabody Institute
Artist in Residence - Thea Ulrich

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Links & resources shared in chat:

Citizen DJ: https://citizen-dj.labs.loc.gov/
Center for the Study of the Public Domain: https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/
Explore the works that moved into the public domain this year: https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2022/
What can you do with Pooh? https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2022/bcvpd/
Want more Roochie Toochie and the Ragtime Shepherd Kings? https://roochietoochie.com/
Ten notable pre-1923 recordings from the Association for Recorded Sound Collections (ARSC): http://www.arsc-audio.org/publicdomainpre23.html
The Great 78 project has preserved and made publicly accessible more than 300,000 78rpm record sides: https://great78.archive.org/
Jason Luther's course at Rowan is called Intro to Writing Arts. In Jason’s module, “Technologies and the Future of Writing” students use Audacity to produce a short episode about a 78 rpm recording in 8 short class meetings. Course site: http://iwa.futureofwriting.com
Students have published their recordings to The Phono Project which has published projects from nearly 200 students: http://phonoproject.com
They have since started publishing this project via their new pop culture zine, Halftone: http://halftonemag.com
You can hear Matt and Jay’s recordings here: http://www.halftonemag.com/phono/
Want to learn more about the work of Jason & his students? Check out our blog post from last summer: http://blog.archive.org/2021/06/09/university-professor-leverages-78rpm-record-collection-from-the-internet-archive-for-students/
Listen to the special disc that musician & historian Colin Hancock cut for the event, then take a deeper dive into his catalog.